US Government is Closed!
- Thread starter PoliticalNick
- Start date
Obama’s Dangerous Claim to Executive Power
Negotiating with Republicans has never been in Obama's playbook.
Three days after his inauguration in 2009, President Barack Obama silenced Republican lawmakers who voiced concerned about the enormity of spending in his stimulus bill by uttering two brash words, "I won."
That was his governing philosophy, as he rammed through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.
But in the fall of 2010, Republicans swept into control of the House of Representatives, and since then, Obama's agenda has been stalled.
With little prospect of gaining control of the House in 2014, Obama is resorting to discrediting the Constitution's limits on presidential power rather than bargain with congressional Republicans.
Here are the president's own words, explaining why he refuses to negotiate to end the government shutdown and resolve the fast approaching debt ceiling problem.
His views on presidential power ought to alarm all Americans.
"I will not pay ransom," said Obama, for a stopgap-spending bill to open the government.
Historically, presidents have had to make concessions to Congress to secure funding. President Reagan endured eight shutdowns.
Each time he negotiated with the Democratic speaker of the house, Tip O'Neill, conceding on issues from mid-range missile defense to support for Nicaraguan contras to quickly end the shutdown.
Fast-forward to the current showdown. The House Republicans' fourth (and latest) offer asks for only two changes in ObamaCare: First, eliminate the subsidy for members of Congress, which has outraged the public.
Second, delay for a year making insurance mandatory for individuals. Let anyone enroll in ObamaCare who wants to. But don't penalize individuals for being uninsured in 2014 when the president has already postponed the penalty on big companies for not insuring workers.
"The Affordable Care Act is a law that passed the House. It passed the Senate; the Supreme Court ruled it constitutional. ... and it is settled," said Obama.
Not so. The health program the president is imposing on us is not the Affordable Care Act. The president has dismembered and mangled it. Gone is the employer mandate, the cap on out of pocket expenses, income verification and over half the deadlines specified in the law. The president delayed or did away with these features without asking Congress. Illegally.
Then, he added 1,472 waivers and connived a subsidy for members of Congress that no one else in American earning $174,000 a year could get.
The Supreme Court has ruled twice that presidents cannot delay, amend and repeal parts of laws.
"It has not been done in the past, and we're not going to start doing it now," said Obama, explaining why he will not negotiate with House Republicans over raising the debt ceiling.
The truth is presidents have often had to make concessions to get the debt ceiling raised. In 1995, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich tried to extract major spending reforms from President Bill Clinton.
The two sides sparred for more than a week past the "deadline" for a hike. That is what the framers intended.
"That's not how our constitutional system is designed," the president said disingenuously. The designer himself, James Madison, explained in Federalist 58 that the president must come to Congress as a supplicant to borrow, tax or spend. That dependence on Congress is "the most effectual tool to remedy" any grievance the people could have against their president.
That brings us to the nefarious proposal taking shape on Capitol Hill. Senate Democrats reportedly will offer a bill shifting to the president the discretion to raise the debt ceiling any time through 2014, except if two-thirds of each house of Congress vote to disapprove. This device, first tried in the Budget Control Act of 2011, weasels around the U. S. Constitution's system of checks and balances and substantially enlarges executive power.
Who is Obama, the 44th president, to demand more borrowing latitude than his 43 predecessors?
As Madison warned in Federalist 62, "an elective despot is not what we fought for."
Family Security Matters
Negotiating with Republicans has never been in Obama's playbook.
Three days after his inauguration in 2009, President Barack Obama silenced Republican lawmakers who voiced concerned about the enormity of spending in his stimulus bill by uttering two brash words, "I won."
That was his governing philosophy, as he rammed through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.
But in the fall of 2010, Republicans swept into control of the House of Representatives, and since then, Obama's agenda has been stalled.
With little prospect of gaining control of the House in 2014, Obama is resorting to discrediting the Constitution's limits on presidential power rather than bargain with congressional Republicans.
Here are the president's own words, explaining why he refuses to negotiate to end the government shutdown and resolve the fast approaching debt ceiling problem.
His views on presidential power ought to alarm all Americans.
"I will not pay ransom," said Obama, for a stopgap-spending bill to open the government.
Historically, presidents have had to make concessions to Congress to secure funding. President Reagan endured eight shutdowns.
Each time he negotiated with the Democratic speaker of the house, Tip O'Neill, conceding on issues from mid-range missile defense to support for Nicaraguan contras to quickly end the shutdown.
Fast-forward to the current showdown. The House Republicans' fourth (and latest) offer asks for only two changes in ObamaCare: First, eliminate the subsidy for members of Congress, which has outraged the public.
Second, delay for a year making insurance mandatory for individuals. Let anyone enroll in ObamaCare who wants to. But don't penalize individuals for being uninsured in 2014 when the president has already postponed the penalty on big companies for not insuring workers.
"The Affordable Care Act is a law that passed the House. It passed the Senate; the Supreme Court ruled it constitutional. ... and it is settled," said Obama.
Not so. The health program the president is imposing on us is not the Affordable Care Act. The president has dismembered and mangled it. Gone is the employer mandate, the cap on out of pocket expenses, income verification and over half the deadlines specified in the law. The president delayed or did away with these features without asking Congress. Illegally.
Then, he added 1,472 waivers and connived a subsidy for members of Congress that no one else in American earning $174,000 a year could get.
The Supreme Court has ruled twice that presidents cannot delay, amend and repeal parts of laws.
"It has not been done in the past, and we're not going to start doing it now," said Obama, explaining why he will not negotiate with House Republicans over raising the debt ceiling.
The truth is presidents have often had to make concessions to get the debt ceiling raised. In 1995, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich tried to extract major spending reforms from President Bill Clinton.
The two sides sparred for more than a week past the "deadline" for a hike. That is what the framers intended.
"That's not how our constitutional system is designed," the president said disingenuously. The designer himself, James Madison, explained in Federalist 58 that the president must come to Congress as a supplicant to borrow, tax or spend. That dependence on Congress is "the most effectual tool to remedy" any grievance the people could have against their president.
That brings us to the nefarious proposal taking shape on Capitol Hill. Senate Democrats reportedly will offer a bill shifting to the president the discretion to raise the debt ceiling any time through 2014, except if two-thirds of each house of Congress vote to disapprove. This device, first tried in the Budget Control Act of 2011, weasels around the U. S. Constitution's system of checks and balances and substantially enlarges executive power.
Who is Obama, the 44th president, to demand more borrowing latitude than his 43 predecessors?
As Madison warned in Federalist 62, "an elective despot is not what we fought for."
Family Security Matters
What Happens If We Actually, Truly Default?
What Happens If We Actually, Truly Default? -- Daily Intelligencer
What Happens If We Actually, Truly Default? -- Daily Intelligencer
Good Article, Locutus, everyone should read it.
This advise is independent of course of my repeated posts that you are the finest moderator this site could hope for and we should blest the day you arrived but still"
Good article, folKs...
How are you going to deal with section 2(d) of the Charter, freedom of association?
The Whigs were a 'consortium' of pro tariff parties to establish a government financing base when selling land seized form the Natives ran out of funds. A la Jacksonians couldn't fund forever.
The Dems were an anti tariff party. Heavily southern export plantation supported.
Aww., BT red marks us all these days. EPcS> those of us who put him on ignore.
You cannot get rid of parties. Amongst other things, how will you get the MP’s to pass a law destroying the structure they work within? It will never get to a vote. Next, how will you deal with the Charter protection of freedom of association (s. 2(d))? You're talking about the absolute power in the nation. You're not going to control it with a bunch of mickey mouse changes like those that have been offered in this thread. The kind of change you are suggesting is to what is called "representative government". The elected members are supposed to represent only their constituents. The US system is theoretically representative. The kind of government we theoretically have is "responsible government" in which members are responsible to their consciences to come up with responsible government. No member of either system survives by being all one or the other. What are you going to do as an 'independent member' when you need to get something done and you're all by yourself in Ottawa? You will seek help from others. What will the people do who disagree with you? Seek help from others. That's the way the system works. You are not going to dismantle a parliamentary structure that is based on hundreds of years of parliamentary experience.
OTOH I do believe that election spending controls work, but we have them already don't we?
That's because people are constantly getting the crap scared out of them over nuclear accidents.
We don't even know how many people have been negatively affected by the Chernobyl accident because the number of additional cancers caused by the added radiation is so small compared to the background rate it can't be calculated. Fukushima is even less severe. And we yet we have people talking about the end of the world when the spent fuel rod pools empty and catch on fire. For one thing to empty the pools you'd need a catastrophe greater than the combined earthquake/tsunami of a few years ago, and even then the zirconium clad fuel rods aren't likely to catch fire as zirconium has a combustion point of close to 2,000 C. And even if all the fuel at Fukushima somehow managed to be ignited it would still only have a local effect.
Zirconium fuel rod fire test - YouTube
Modern designs like molten salt reactors remove the danger of release of radioactive steam from a pressurized reactor vessel and the core is already in a molten state, in the event of an emergency shutdown the core is drained into a holding tank where it freezes solid.
Thank you for an excellent example of the "No True Scotsman" logical fallacy.
No true Scotsman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Feds suspend payments of pensions and others to pay the debt first. Then pay what you have to based upon a percentage of what is left over. Also assign a triage system of payments, with debt first, salaries, etc for the Senate and House suspended.
You don't need to convince me Tell the nimby's and the sundry other groups that are against progress.
